Ideas, experiments and creations. Art and design from JonBurgessDesign

Sunday, 15 January 2017

'Proper' Earrings and Repurposing Cobwebbed Gift Boxes

Dangle type earrings, see below for explanations etc.

There were some small bits of image transferred polymer clay left over from my Image Transfer Tube bead TUTORIAL. I don't like these things going to waste, so when I realised that they were just big enough for my 8mm square cutter, I cut some squares out of them. So, now what? What do I do with these little squares? . .

Well, I had seen small stud earrings on various people's sites and in their shops and often thought I should have a go at making some. Well, this was my opportunity. See below. I think they turned out OK. I was worried that they might be a bit too thick, but the consensus amongst good people I consulted was that they were fine. So I listed them in my ETSY SHOP.

I admit that I felt a twinge of guilt about charging even half decent money for such teeny tiny things, but I've been around long enough to know that it's just 'artist's insecurity', (an old and familiar enemy) rearing its pathetic head, so I tried to ignore it and hope it would take the hint and return it's head to its previous, un-reared position and not bother me again. I mean, they're not that blooming expensive.

As you can see from the top pic in this post, I also made some dangle type earrings out of the same leftovers. I'm trying out different options you see.

Over the past several months I have been keeping half an eye on how other makers I admire go about configuring earrings. Not that I haven't made and sold quite a few sets of my own in the past couple of years, you understand, but I'm all too aware that they have tended to be the obvious, 'dangle one of my beads from an ear wire' style things. Which, though the results can look good, is not exactly stretching me as an artist or teaching me anything. I need to be more adventurous.

My standard style earrings

Though I am very concerned with being 'original' - almost pathologically so ;-) Just now I feel the need to follow in other's footsteps for a bit, at least until I feel confident enough to branch out on my own.
Ok, that doesn't sound much like 'being adventurous', but it gets me out of my comfort zone, and anyway, you have to walk before you can run, innit?

I have noticed and noted the tendency in most makers to have a bead of some sort between the ear wire and the main charm/drop, (observant eh? sharp as tack, me. .) so using bits I had lying around, I knocked up the earrings below, and the ones in the top pic as mentioned before. . I even did that twisty wire loop at each side of the bead thing. . . Not all that exciting, but they do look, to my unpracticed eye, quite 'wearable'. Or maybe just a bit 'like what other people do' and more like 'proper jewellery' ;-) whatever that means. I dunno.

'Proper' earrings ;-)

Although, to be fair to myself I have tried to break out of my 'single bead on an ear wire' habits recently, (see below). If you remember, I did blog about these old nails and spare beads earrings I made before Christmas, but that was me following a whim rather than trying to work things out.

Check the background - maybe f4 makes a bit too narrow a DOF though

On a different note, I hope you dig the background props in these pics. It's a wood and wire box that I have had knocking around for years. I think it had some kind 'gift' in it, like a bottle of liqueur or some such originally, but anyway, I found that its just the thing to display earrings on when I want to photograph them. I stuck a pattern print I had recently made for a completely different purpose, and which happened to be on my desk, in the back of the box, set the camera to f4, to put the background out of focus and took some pics. I think it looks good. Apart from the cobwebs that is. I'll attend to them later.
A new look for 2017 eh?

2 comments:

Leave the cobwebs Jon! To me they go perfectly with the mesh etc. I quite like the pics!

And - I do like your using up of little bits to make studs. The thing with pricing - you can't raise it later but you can lower it if you want and they don't sell at whatever price you have on them. People see a higher price as something more worthwhile - for some odd reason. People are weird....

My favourites are your old nail earrings. They just hit the right spot for me....

Keep it up. The fact that you are back creating and thinking about creating is wonderful - especially when renos need doing!!